For this essay, the question under investigation is: “To what extent did the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 impact Native American Tribes and their culture?” The number of tribes impacted by this act is too vast for us to investigate them all, so the focus of this research question will be on the Five Civilized Tribes to make the subject less broad. Lifestyles of the Native Americans in the Five Civilized Tribes before and after the Dawes Act will be investigated to get a better understanding of the life and cultural changes these people endured. The impacts include the splitting up of land and the redistribution of the land to individual tribe members, and the introduction of "white culture," such as farming, to the Native Americans.
The government had the power over reservations of Nations, and could divide them up amongst individual Native Americans. The Dawes Allotment Act, affected Native sovereignty because the Native Government had no say in what their land would be used for. The text stated, "Indian
These groups believed that the Native Americans would not give up their traditional barbarian ways if they were not civilized. "J.D.C. Atkins, commissioner of Indian affairs, argued that the Dawes Act was the first step toward transforming, "Idleness, improvidence, ignorance, and superstition.. into industry, thrift, intelligence, and Christianity"." (Staff, 2009) The Native Americans land holdings dropped from 138 million acres down to 48 million acres, for a loss of 90 million acres of land. (Newcomb, 2012)
However, this did not mean they were able to keep their land the way you might expect, and, is in fact, perhaps, one of the monstrous legislatives we have ever given to Natives. This act demolished, already identified boundaries, broke tribes apart as communal units, and threatened the cultural aspects of each tribe. This act applied to all Native American tribes, except: the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Osage, Miami, Sac, Fox, Peoria, and Seneca nations. This act, was actually named for Massachusetts Congressman Henry Dawes, who claimed that private property had the power to civilize, even the most basic brutes, and according to Dawes, the very act of being civilized, was to “wear civilized clothes, cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey (and) own property.” Under the Dawes Act, the allotted persons would hold the land for 25 years; consequently, the land would then go to the individuals who had held that chunk of land or to their heirs, in which they would gain the title of American Citizen.
Through this act the government wanted to completely eliminate what was left of the Native Americans and assimilate them into society of Whites. This act required Indians to abandon everything in connection with their tribal practice and to adopt the new life of being a farmer and landowner. ““The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887” provided for the gradual elimination of most tribal ownership of land” (Brinkley 398). This was one of the way the tribal unity was destroyed by this act. Further activities done by the government in accordance with this act also helped in declining the Native Americans.
The Act led to an array of legal and moral arguments for and against the need to relocate the Indians westward from the agriculturally productive lands of the Mississippi in Georgia and parts of Alabama. This paper compares and contrasts the major arguments for and against the
Analyze the effects on Indians of the Indians Reorganization Act of 1934? Since the first encounter with Europeans and Native Americans, the Indian minorities have been forced to give up their rights and land to obey the new laws that were enforced by the settlers that have come to America. Since the Great Depression all Americans were effected from the market crashing in 1929.The effects have been hard on Americans including the Native Americans, Native Americans were experiencing “over half of the tribal land base was lost to land thieves, tax sales, and governmental sales of surplus lands. A [continuing] launched cycle of poverty that continues at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Thus, lack of education and ill health became hallmarks
The Dawes act of 1887 was a law that allowed distribution of Indian reservation land between tribesmen with the task of making whiteman’s image as responsible farmers. It was presented to congress several times by Sen. Henry L. Dawes from Massachusetts. On February 7, 1887 it was finally enacted under terms that the president presented. It was determined the recipients that were suitable were issued grants. The 160 acres of land was issued to head of households.
Dawes Severalty Act De Juan Evans-Taylor Humboldt State University Abstract The Dawes Act of 1887, some of the time alluded to as the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 or the General Allotment Act, was marked into law on January 8, 1887, by US President Grover Cleveland. This was approved by the president to appropriate and redistribute tribal grounds in the American West. It expressly tried to crush the social union of Indian tribes and to along these lines dispose of the rest of the remnants of Indian culture and society. Just by repudiating their own customs, it was accepted, could the Indians at any point turn out to be genuinely "American."
1. How did Dawes Act effected the Native Americans? Dawes Act is the 1887 General Allotment Act. This act was to force the American Indians, who lived in communal way of life, to live Europeans style of individualism. It provided 160 acres of land for each family head and 80 acres to single persons over the age of eighteen (Reyhner and Eder,2006, p.81).
More indians tribes were destroyed during war with the whites, and since the Native Americans did not have as much technology, food, and medicine as the whites, they lost a lot of warriors. Many Native Americans would leave their tribes in search for food only to be confronted and ambushed by white soldiers. Some Native Americans chose to surrender rather than to be moved to a different location. After the Indian and American War, the General Allotment Act was passed, also known as The Dawes Act of 1887. The Dawes Act granted Native Americans land allotments.
Trail of Tears Native Americans have lived in the United States much longer than anyone of different decent. Way before Columbus ever thought about sailing the ocean blue the Cherokee tribe and others vacated the Southeast part of this country and it was rightfully their home. However they were kicked out from their homeland, where multiple generations of their families have lived for hundreds of years. This obscene removal is now known as the Trail of Tears, and this paper will demonstrate the impact it had on the Cherokee.
Merrell’s article proves the point that the lives of the Native Americans drastically changed just as the Europeans had. In order to survive, the Native Americans and Europeans had to work for the greater good. Throughout the article, these ideas are explained in more detail and uncover that the Indians were put into a new world just as the Europeans were, whether they wanted change or
When the Europeans began colonizing the New World, they had a problematic relationship with the Native Americans. The Europeans sought to control a land that the Natives inhabited all their lives. They came and decided to take whatever they wanted regardless of how it affected the Native Americans. They legislated several laws, such as the Indian Removal Act, to establish their authority. The Indian Removal Act had a negative impact on the Native Americans because they were driven away from their ancestral homes, forced to adopt a different lifestyle, and their journey westwards caused the deaths of many Native Americans.
First of all, Native Americans were settled on a hotbed of natural resources which included oil and precious metals such as silver and gold. There was also much fertile land that would entice farmers and frontiersmen to move out west. On this land there was so much potential economic opportunity for farmers, cattle drivers, miners and many other occupations. The government developed the popular public misconception that the indians were misusing the land and that Americans had the right to take advantage of the opportunities that lie in the west. These ideas led to the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 which authorized encroachment of Indian lands by the US government in order to divide up reservations and control Indian activity.
The Allotment Act The Dawes Act and its supporters sang a very similar tune to southerners who justified slavery as their patriarchal and christian duty. The Dawes Act allowed the President of the United States to survey the reservations Indians lived on and allot its land to heads of households, single persons over eighteen, and to orphans. This meant that the President went into reservations and redistributed the land, upsetting the system Native Americans had previously. Slave owners of the Antebellum South believed that the Black men and women needed to be enslaved, for they could not function without a patriarchal master. Westerners too saw the Native Americans as inferior, and felt that they had to help the tribal people be free of